The Main Obstacle to Great Sanctity and How to Overcome It

The words of Christ, "Without Me you can do nothing", imply that all the work is done by Him. What then, prevents you from 'tying up' with this tremendous power, from being an effective instrument in the competent hands of such omnipotence? It is your own will!
God gives the grace necessary for doing all He asks of us. Due to unwillingness to cooperate on our part, many graces are merely sufficient. God will not sanctify me against my will, but He can change my stubborn resistance, if I let Him. He can change my subjective thinking - this is the way I feel about it, therefore that's the way it is - into a desire to listen to Him. Subjective thinking can keep God from reaching me with simple truths about my obstructions to grace. By giving God permission I can be stripped of my objections to His taking over, and clothed with a dynamic desire to reach Him.
God has a plan to sanctify us through the action of grace in our souls. He can make us great saints, if we let Him. We know that He loves us and wants to give us eternal life, yet we do not seem to act that way. On taking thought, we should come to the conclusion that the way out of the dilemma is to give Him permission and then determine to accept everything that happens to me. Pius XII said (in Mediator Dei) that all Christians are victim souls, and he suggests that we offer ourselves to God at the offertory of the Mass. Or, we can make a deep commitment to this permission in the privacy of our heart.
Compose a short prayer giving God permission to change you, so that you will more readily respond to grace in accepting what each moment brings.
Compose a short prayer giving God permission so to purify you that you can become an effective channel of grace by fully accepting His plan for you and for the world. (Do not use words like martyr, victim, etc.)

Prayer for Holy Mother Church

IN UNION with the SORROWFUL and Immaculate Heart of Mary we hail and adore the Holy Wound of Thy right Hand, O Dearest Jesus, and in this wound we place The Poor SOULS IN PURGATORY AND all the Priests of Thy Holy Church. Each time they offer the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass give them the Fire of Thy Divine LOVE that they may give it, in turn, to the souls entrusted to them. GLORY be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit! Amen!

We hail and adore the Holy Wound of Thy left Hand, and in this Wound we give to Thee THE POOR SOULS IN PURGATORY AND all those in error and nonbelievers, those poorest of the poor who don't know Thee. For the sake of these souls, O Dearest Jesus, send many good workers to Thy vineyards, that they all may find their way to Thy Most Sacred Heart. GLORY be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit! Amen!

We hail and adore the Holy Wounds of Thy Holy Feet, and in these wounds we give Thee the hardened sinners, who love the world more than Thee, especially those who must die today. O Dearest Jesus, don't let Thy Precious BLOOD be lost to them. GLORY be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit Amen.

We hail and adore the Holy Wounds of Thy Most Sacred HEAD, and in these Wounds we give Thee THE POOR SOULS IN PURGATORY AND the enemies of Holy Mother Church, all those who today still make bloody persecutions on Thy Mystical Body. We PRAY Thee, O Dearest Jesus, convert them, summon them, as Thou didst summon Saul to Paul, that there may soon be one Flock and one Shepherd. GLORY be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit! Amen!

We hail and adore the Wound of Thy Most Sacred Heart, and in this Wound we give Thee THE POOR SOULS IN PURGATORY, our souls and all for whom Thou wishest us to pray, especially all the suffering and oppressed, all the persecuted and abandoned. Grant to them all, O Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, Thy Light and Thy Grace. Fill all of us with Thy LOVE and Thy true PEACE. GLORY be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit! Amen. Heavenly Father, through the SORROWFUL and Immaculate Heart of Mary we offer Thee Thy most-LOVED Son and ourselves with Him, in Him, and through Him completely according to His intentions and in the name of, for and from all creatures from the beginning to the end of the world. Amen!

The Healing Flame of Love - Acceptance

In these modern times many people are suffering from severe spiritual malnutrition. Disquiet, unrest and anxiety are the background of our every day problems. Everyone searches for a solution but finds it difficult to get proper answers. The great lacuna of our age is the inability of people in trouble - moral, psychological and spiritual - to find someone who can give answers, compassion, understanding and proper love (giving Christ). In this great dilemma a natural approach can give significant results. Because it is a simple remedy, because it does not preach yet can give a satisfactory result, "acceptance" can be the answer to the universal cry of distress - "Why is this happening to me?"
What is acceptance? It is simply accepting what is happening to me or what has happened to me. Note that it is not accepting what I am afraid is going to happen. Just plain ordinary acceptance of all life's difficulties, frustrations and heartaches can bring peace of mind to anyone who will try it. Though it sounds simple, it has a very firm and deep foundation consisting of three parts. If a person accepts what is happening to him he is living in reality. Psychologically, this is good. Through this acceptance he is to that extent cooperating with God's plan for him. This too is good, spiritually. Thirdly, suffering willingly accepted purifies the soul, bringing it closer to God. Hence, the 'magic' of acceptance is available to every traveler to eternity - believer and non-believer, alike.
There are many things that acceptance can mean or do. It can reorient our life by changing our viewpoint. After terminating our endless worrying over what might happen, it can be a great tranquilizer. It can clear our minds of much useless pondering, allowing more constructive ideas to occupy our mind. If we have been resisting God, acceptance can pull greater help from Him. My acceptance of another person in all his unlovableness can be the first step in loving him properly as my neighbor and enabling God to reach him. Acceptance can strengthen the person, if there is weakness in carrying everyday burdens.
But now the question of accepting evil arises. What to do about my alcoholic or unfaithful husband, the defection of a member of my family, evil situations that are constantly coming to my attention? We must believe that evil would not be allowed by God if He could not get good from it. So we accept the fact of evil in our particular situation but not the evil itself. God posits each situation to obtain a particular result. If there is complete non-acceptance this result is not forth coming, hence a continuation of the situation. It is important to understand therefore, that the good obtainable - the result desired by God - is in great measure dependent on the degree of acceptance of the matter on someone's part.
As I gain the ability to accept my own trials and the trials and sins of others I will obtain the grace to accept the great unrest, injustice and suffering in the world. To the extent that I am accepting the world just as it is, I am cooperating with God in His plan for the world. This will help to change the world's suffering into purification, which will help bring peace to the world.
We marvel at Satan's power over the mind and body of Christ in His passion. Christ allowed the evil of the whole world to inundate Him. He accepted it. This was part of His passion necessary to overcome the world, to redeem it from sin. Should we be surprised if, following Christ, the mystical body is almost overwhelmed by the satanic power of evil temptation? There will be many, realizing that it is Christ Who is suffering in us, who will resist to an heroic degree the pressure of evil in these latter days. We can be so strongly oriented by the depth of our acceptance of almost unreasonable psychological suffering that we may be allowed to participate in God's overthrow of this worlds' evil. Probably never again in time will there be such a great opportunity to do so much for the world with God's help and direction. Not by my own feeble efforts, but by giving myself completely to God's will by acceptance and circumstance, through docility to the Holy Spirit. The stakes are high - .

The Challenge of Curcifixion

Christ has said that those who want to win heaven must deny themselves, must take up their cross daily and follow Him. This following of Christ - where does it lead? it leads to a crucifixion that can sanctify us very quickly and enable us to help others on the way to salvation. Pius XII has said very strongly "... we (the faithful) must undergo with Christ a mystical death on the cross so that we can apply to ourselves the words of St. Paul - 'With Christ I am nailed to the cross.'"
This crucifixion is not a station of the cross to be merely looked at or meditated upon - it mus be experiences. We know well enough what crucifixion meant for Christ. What can it be for us in this modern civilization? In this day and age if can mean that, believing in God's love, we allow ourselves to be willingly placed by providence in an arranged situation or trial, where we are as unable to help or defend ourselves or to remedy the situation as Christ allowed Himself to be on the cross. It can be having our heart broken, letting our own will and its plans vanish, so that it can be remade into a likeness of Christ's own Heart, through which life and love flow.
This rules out self-determination, the modern defense mechanism against God's persistent pursuit of us. If we are to be guided by the Holy Spirit we must present Him with a person willing to be guided. This is hard to come by unless we receive the grace necessary to humble ourselves to a real experience of our very nothingness.
Christ's victory of redemption was accomplished in most part by His passion in the garden. He had allowed Himself to be placed in such a situation that the psychological pressure an His human soul to adhere to His own divine Will was beyond our imaginings. This type of suffering can be ours in varying degrees. If the terminal work of our purification, usually reserved for Purgatory, is applied to us in this life, it can lead to a very potent encounter with Christ and strongly point us to the heights. To attain such a reorientation in such a relatively short time requires a special set-up. We are put under the extreme pressure of adverse circumstances specifically designed to make us accept freely what is happening to us. It can be a real wound of crucifixion. The process is somewhat similar to pressure applied to a glued wood joint, over a period of time, to form a solid bond. The suffering entailed can be so penetrating that it seems to destroy us, yet it an be the short cut that leads to His presence and ability to do redemptive work. When die pressure is removed you may be in the region of beginning contemplation.
St. Paul's conversion shows what can happen when there is full cooperation with grace - when God speaks to the soul in unmistakable accents, with a proper response. Before his conversion his spiritual activity was simply tremendous, but he was doing no supernatural work - in fact he was destroying God's work. During those few moments of God's special action he was almost inert physically, but his will's acceptance of God's desires was such a concatenation of grace that he was thoroughly reoriented. If he had qualified his acceptance by distracting thoughts about his future, the result would have been impaired. Note that he accepted the situation as it was presented and gave God full permission to act. This incident in his life merits deep study.
Let us now conjecture what might happen if a person were, in God's providence to cooperate with grace and desire to give himself very generously to the work of saving souls. (A total gift of self, a deep commitment in fully embracing God's will.) We have said that supernatural activity over a period of time is supernatural work, that is, it has supernatural value.His lifetime would provide a definite supernatural result. If God took hi at his word, He could arrange to have him produce this lifetime output in a few years. The remaining years would then be at an increased output which could be applied to others.Of course, the process would entail suffering - crucifixion probably - because the whole personality would be changed. (See what a different man Paul was from Saul.)
He wold probably be very conscious of God's power working in him, the psychological pressures effecting their end. With victory would come Christ's mind as his own. The great end result could be that he would be enabled to love God so much, do His will so perfectly, be so completely His instrument as a channel of grace that divine providential love would be able freely to flow over the whole world and so neutralize the prevalent hate and evil; that other persons would be affected by the leaven so such an extent that the Heart of Christ would be consoled an He would have pity on us poor sinners.